London Grand Prix 9th Round Thrills

After a rest day on Sunday, the refreshed players were in a fighting mood in round 9 of the FIDE London Grand Prix!

Boris Gelfand lost his first game of the tournament against Alexander Grischuk, which allowed Shakhriyar Mamedyarov to snatch the lead with just two rounds remaining. Mamedyarov beat Leinier Dominguez Perez with an aggressive attacking game to take his score to 6/9.

Elsewhere, Veselin Topalov scored his second win of the competition against an out-of-sorts Vassily Ivanchuk, and Michael Adams piled on the agony for Hikaru Nakamura by inflicting a fourth consecutive loss on the American.

The standings after 9 of 11 rounds

#

Name

Fed

Elo

Pts

1

Mamedyarov, Shakhriyar

AZE

2729

6

2

Grischuk, Alexander

RUS

2754

5½

3

Topalov, Veselin

BUL

2752

5½

4

Gelfand, Boris

ISR

2738

5½

5

Leko, Peter

HUN

2737

5

6

Wang, Hao

CHN

2742

4½

7

Giri, Anish

NED

2730

4

8

Kasimdzhanov, Rustam

UZB

2684

4

9

Ivanchuk, Vassily

UKR

2769

4

10

Adams, Michael

ENG

2722

4

11

Dominguez Perez, Leinier

CUB

2725

3½

12

Nakamura, Hikaru

USA

2783

2½

.

Alexander Grischuk beat Boris Gelfand in round nine

.

.

Beware the Shak attack! Mamedyarov takes the lead in London

.

.

Veselin Topalov is one of three players just half a point behind the leader

.

.Last-minute replacement Michael Adams is holding his own in London

.

.Peter Leko clung on for a draw against Wang Hao

.

.Rustam Kasimdzhanov survived a breakthrough in a blocked position by Anish Giri

.

.

On Sunday's rest day, many of the players visited the Saatchi Gallery's Art of Chess exhibition

.The London Grand Prix is the first tournament of the 2012/13 FIDE Grand Prix series. After London the series moves on to Tashkent, Lisbon, Madrid, Berlin and Paris. Each tournament is a single round-robin featuring 12 out of the 18 players in the Grand Prix, and each player competes in four of the six events. Details of dates and participants can be found here.

The overall winner and runner-up of the Grand Prix qualify for the March 2014 Candidates Tournament.

The schedule for the London Grand Prix:

Arrival & Opening

20th September

1st Round

21st September

2nd Round

22nd September

3rd Round

23rd September

4th Round

24th September

5th Round

25th September

Free Day

26th September

6th Round

27th September

7th Round

28th September

8th Round

29th September

Free Day

30th September

9th Round

1st October

10th Round

2nd October

11th round & Closing

3rd October

Departure

4th October

.

Rounds start at 14:00 local time (13:00 UTC). The time control is 40 moves in 2 hours, followed by 20 moves in 1 hour, then an extra 15 minutes to a finish with a 30 second increment after the second time control.

Draws can only be claimed for triple-repetition of position, theoretical draws, or 50-move rule.

The official regulations for the 2012 FIDE Grand Prix can be found here.